


be jolly; drown melancholy

by mercuryhatter



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Episode: e159 The Last, Wedding Rings, as much as elias is capable of doing that ig, nasty old men in love, peter lukas's death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:00:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23878051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercuryhatter/pseuds/mercuryhatter
Summary: "Peter hadn't had both rings because of any strife... he just liked to take Elias’s ring off his hand sometimes, usually as Elias slept while Peter slipped out for his next voyage before morning, taking a small piece of Elias with him on the endless sea."Elias visits the Lonely after Peter Lukas gives his last statement.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Comments: 15
Kudos: 105





	be jolly; drown melancholy

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from a line from the shanty "Spanish Ladies."

Fifteen years ago, Elias and Peter had fought. Elias couldn’t remember how it had started, but with each of them in mean and petty moods matters just escalated until they were past the point of tolerability. It went on for a week, and at its height, when they found themselves having something between makeup and breakup sex, Elias slipped. He was so distracted by Peter’s rare show of initiative in the bedroom that he let himself be blindfolded, wrists tied to ankles, suspecting nothing as he felt the drag of Peter’s beard on his bare hip, and then suddenly he was facedown in the tidewaters of the Lonely, still bound, saltwater rushing into his nose. Peter was nowhere to be found, and with the mundane bindings as well as the power of Forsaken weighing Elias down it took him hours to get free. For three years after they didn’t even speak, communicating only through their lawyers; they weren’t remarried again for five. It was the worst fight they ever had. 

Walking through the Lonely now, unbound and very nearly at the height of his powers, Elias felt the same swoop of sick rage and fear in his stomach as he had on that day. It was risky to be standing in the Lonely feeling like this, but in the wake of the Archivist’s destruction, Forsaken’s power was at a low ebb and Elias’s was strong. Still, the way the wind tugged at his wrists and hair felt dangerous, cold with the human mind’s unquenchable urge to jump. But Elias could ignore it; he had too much tethering him to existence right now, too many reasons to keep moving forward, not enough regrets. Perhaps not even as many regrets as Peter might deserve from him now, but their acquaintance had never operated on what either of them deserved. 

Peter--what was left of him--was so many bits of ash swirling in the wind. The strongest were the consistency of dead tissue under the sea, billowing and wet; the weakest, less substantial than mist. The Archivist had literally torn him apart, and most of Elias was proud, excited by the powerful little thing he’d made. He’d known there was a chance he could do this, but he hadn’t dared to hope-- hadn’t dared to fear. 

Still, Elias found himself wishing there was something left he could carry home, even just a set of bones, a fitting bookend to poor Barnabas Bennett. Of course, on any scale Peter far outweighed Barnabas, in importance and strength and-- well, sentimental connection. It would be an insult for Elias to keep their bones on the same bookshelf, and Elias, for the first time, felt like he had dealt Peter quite enough insults this round. 

Elias opened one of his Eyes to catch the glint of metal in the sand, being tugged by a lapping wave but not yet lost to the sea. He seized it before the Lonely could, weighed it in his palm, enjoying the impotent annoyance of Forsaken at his acquisition of it. It was two rings on a chain: the chain simple, even ugly, but the rings ancient and fine. One was silver, set with a small knob of petrified wood; the other gold, set with polished bone. Peter hadn’t had both of them because of any strife; it was Elias who typically safekept the rings when they were estranged. No, Peter just liked to take Elias’s off his hand sometimes, usually as Elias slept while Peter slipped out for his next voyage before morning, taking a small piece of Elias with him on the endless sea. 

It made Peter weak in the eyes of his patron, was probably a large part of why Peter had never had any particular success gathering power for the Lonely. Elias knew this should diminish his respect for him, but he also Knew that it didn’t. There was a small core of Elias, of Jonah Magnus, that beat as if it was a human heart. Small enough to ignore. Small enough to fit on a chain around Peter Lukas’s neck. 

Elias opened the rest of his Eyes to pass out of the Lonely, feeling its rage at the destruction of its avatar and Beholding’s part in it like the pull of a tide passing back out to sea around bare feet, sucking at the sand but leaving him standing. As things were, the Lonely could not touch him now. It had lost the only hands it had to do so. Once again in his office, Elias looked at the rings in his hand. 

“I’m a widower,” he told the bones of Barnabas, from their silent place on his shelf. He laughed once, hollow, and wrapped Peter’s ugly chain around his wrist, tucked away under his cuff. He Looked to be sure that the Archivist was on his way north before turning his attention to his typewriter, where he’d left a piece of letterhead paper ready hours before. 

_ Statement of Hazel Rutter, regarding a fire in her childhood home... _


End file.
